The USB drive sat on the apartment's desk like a small black bomb.
William had been avoiding it for three days. The dead drops, the stat upgrades, the gym session—all of it felt like procrastination now. Productive procrastination, but procrastination nonetheless.
"You know what's on there. You know why Engström died. Stop stalling."
He plugged the drive into the laptop he'd bought from a pawn shop and started working.
The encryption was ICA standard—military-grade, designed to resist casual intrusion. But "casual" was the key word. Engström had been a data specialist, not a security expert. His cipher keys were stored in a separate file on the same drive, protected by a password that turned out to be his daughter's birthday.
"Sloppy. Fatal sloppiness."
[DECRYPTION: Complete]
[CONTENTS:]
[- ICA Client Lists (Partial) — 847 entries]
[- Contract Schedules (Active) — 3 files]
[- Internal Memos — 12 documents]
[- Handler Communications — 156 messages]
[ANALYSIS: Processing...]
William opened the client lists first.
Eight hundred and forty-seven entries. Names, positions, organizations. The people who paid the ICA to make problems disappear—permanently. Politicians, executives, crime lords, and a few entries that made William's stomach turn. Religious leaders. Charity founders. People whose public faces bore no resemblance to what they commissioned in private.
"This is a nuclear weapon. Anyone who sees this becomes a target."
He moved to the contract schedules.
Three active operations. Three targets. Three timelines.
[CONTRACT 1:]
[TARGET: Viktor Novikov]
[LOCATION: Paris, France — Palais de Walewska]
[DATE: April 27, 2019]
[EVENT: Sanguine Fashion Show / IAGO Auction]
[NOTE: Secondary target — Dalia Margolis]
The words hit William like ice water.
Paris. Viktor Novikov. Dalia Margolis. The Showstopper mission—the opening act of the entire World of Assassination trilogy.
He knew this mission. He'd played it dozens of times in another life, memorized every route, every disguise opportunity, every kill method. Viktor Novikov, the fashion mogul who ran a spy network. Dalia Margolis, the IAGO leader who sold secrets to the highest bidder. Both of them dead by Agent 47's hand in a timeline that was rapidly becoming William's reality.
[META-KNOWLEDGE VERIFICATION:]
[Paris Showstopper — Confirmed]
[Timeline: Matches user's prior knowledge]
[Agent 47 presence: Highly probable]
[NOTE: User meta-knowledge accuracy currently 94% for near-term events. Accuracy degrades with timeline divergence.]
Ninety-four percent. His game knowledge was still reliable—for now. But every action he took changed the timeline. Every butterfly effect he created pushed the future further from the script he knew.
"This is an opportunity."
The thought was cold. Calculated. The kind of thinking the system had been training him toward since Copenhagen.
"47 will be at that fashion show. He'll kill Novikov and Margolis. And while everyone's panicking, while security is chasing a phantom, I can be somewhere else entirely. Doing something profitable."
William opened the second file: internal memos.
Most were operational boilerplate—shift schedules, handler rotations, bureaucratic noise. But three documents caught his attention.
[MEMO: SHADOW CLIENT ACTIVITY]
[Classification: Handler-Level]
[Summary: Unknown actor manipulating ICA contract flow. Multiple operations compromised. Pattern suggests inside knowledge of Providence operations. Investigation ongoing.]
The Shadow Client. Lucas Grey. The childhood friend Agent 47 didn't remember, orchestrating a war against Providence from the shadows.
William knew how this story ended. He knew Grey's real identity, his connection to 47, his eventual fate. Information that wouldn't exist in ICA databases for months or years to come.
"Leverage. Everything is leverage."
[MEMO: DIANA BURNWOOD — QUARTERLY REVIEW]
[Classification: Executive]
[Summary: Handler performance exceeds metrics. Recommended for expanded operational authority. Note: Personal history with previous Constant assassination remains under observation.]
Diana. The voice in 47's ear. The woman who would eventually destroy Providence from within.
"She's watching. Everyone's watching everyone in this world."
[MEMO: AGENT 47 — OPERATIONAL STATUS]
[Classification: Restricted]
[Summary: Asset remains highest-value contractor. Current assignment: Paris (April 27). Handler: Burnwood. Support level: Standard.]
Confirmation. 47 would be in Paris on April 27th. The Showstopper was happening exactly as William remembered it.
"Twelve days."
He checked the date on his laptop. April 15th. Twelve days until the most exclusive intelligence auction in Europe, and the most dangerous man in the world would be there to burn it down.
William spent the next six hours mapping the opportunity.
The Sanguine fashion show at the Palais de Walewska was invitation-only—Paris elite, fashion industry leaders, and the kind of money that didn't need to ask prices. Behind the public event, IAGO would be conducting their real business: an auction of state secrets, intelligence assets, and information worth more than most countries' GDPs.
"The auction is the target. Not Novikov, not Margolis—the data."
IAGO's client list would be there. Their operational files. The kind of intelligence that could give someone leverage over half the world's power brokers.
"And while 47 is creating chaos upstairs, the security response will be focused entirely on him. Nobody will be watching the server room."
[TACTICAL ASSESSMENT:]
[OBJECTIVE: Infiltrate IAGO auction]
[COVER: Security consultant (existing identity)]
[WINDOW: Duration of 47's operation (estimated 30-90 minutes)]
[TARGETS: IAGO digital intelligence, portable assets]
[RISK: High (presence of Agent 47)]
[REWARD: Potentially transformative]
The plan took shape in his mind like a corporate strategy session—risks, rewards, resource requirements, contingencies. The professional part of him—the part that had spent fifteen years analyzing market opportunities—recognized the pattern.
"This is hostile acquisition. You're planning a corporate raid on a spy network."
The system's clinical voice offered its own assessment.
[OPERATION VIABILITY: 67%]
[NOTE: Probability assumes successful infiltration and extraction before 47's operation concludes. Failure scenarios include: detection by IAGO security, proximity to 47's targets, system-detected witnesses requiring elimination.]
Sixty-seven percent. Better odds than the twenty-three percent survival rating the system had given him in Amsterdam.
"What do I need?"
[REQUIREMENTS:]
[1. Invitation to Sanguine fashion show (obtainable via social engineering or purchase)]
[2. Plausible cover for IAGO contact (security consultant insufficient — requires upgrade)]
[3. Technical capability for data extraction (current skills: insufficient)]
[4. Extraction plan independent of main event (current resources: insufficient)]
Four gaps. Twelve days to fill them.
William closed the laptop and stared at the wall. The USB drive's contents were still glowing in his mind—names, dates, operations. The machinery of a shadow world laid bare by a dead man's carelessness.
"Engström wanted to sell this. He thought he could profit from it and survive."
[QUERY: User assessment of Engström's strategy?]
"He underestimated how fast the ICA would move. And he underestimated how dangerous it is to know things powerful people want hidden."
[COUNTER-QUERY: How does user's current strategy differ?]
William didn't have an answer for that.
The shop debt came due in three days.
Twenty SP, interest on the Smoke Veil he'd bought on credit. Twenty SP meant committing sins worth twenty points—theft, deception, something worse. The system had structured its economy to ensure he couldn't stand still. Stagnation meant debt. Debt meant penalties. Penalties meant death.
"You're not a customer. You're a resource being cultivated."
[OBSERVATION: User insight into system economics is noted.]
[CLARIFICATION: System resource allocation is optimized for mutual benefit. User survival probability increases with SP accumulation. SP accumulation requires moral flexibility.]
[CONCLUSION: Alignment of incentives.]
Alignment. The system called it alignment. William called it addiction with extra steps.
He pulled up the shop interface and checked his remaining SP.
[CURRENT SP: 39]
[DEBT: 20 SP (Due in 3 days)]
[NET: 19 SP after debt clearance]
Nineteen points. Barely enough for a single minor stat upgrade. He needed more—needed to commit sins that would cover the debt and build a surplus for the Paris operation.
"What's in Paris that's worth dying for?"
The question wasn't rhetorical. The system was already calculating.
[PARIS OPERATION — POTENTIAL SP REWARDS:]
[- Tier 2 sins (fraud, theft, infiltration): 15-40 SP per act]
[- Tier 3 sins (assault, blackmail, witness elimination): 50-120 SP per act]
[- Tier 4+ sins (major targets, high-profile eliminations): 150+ SP per act]
[- Creativity bonuses: x1.2-2.0 depending on methodology]
[- Irony dividends: Variable (depends on victim relationship)]
The math was elegant in its horror. High-risk operations offered high rewards. The system wanted him in Paris, wanted him taking chances, wanted him sinking deeper into its economy of corruption.
"And if I succeed, I'll have enough SP to become someone dangerous. If I fail, I'll be dead and the system will find another host."
[CORRECTION: System-user bond is singular. Host death results in system dormancy, not transfer.]
That was almost worse. The system was betting everything on him—its existence tied to his survival. They were partners in this descent, bound together by a contract neither of them had signed willingly.
April 27th.
William circled the date on a mental calendar, watching the countdown tick toward something that felt like destiny and looked like suicide.
Twelve days to build a legend. Twelve days to become someone who belonged at the most exclusive intelligence auction in Europe. Twelve days to prepare for an operation that would put him within killing distance of Agent 47.
The USB drive sat on the desk, its contents still burning in his memory. Eight hundred and forty-seven clients. Three active contracts. A war being fought in shadows by people whose names he knew from a video game in another life.
"You're not ready."
[ASSESSMENT: Accurate. Current capabilities insufficient for high-risk operation.]
"But I'm going anyway."
[ASSESSMENT: Also accurate. User risk tolerance increasing. System integration proceeding normally.]
Normally. The system thought this was normal—this slide from corporate strategist to aspiring spy, from man who'd never held a gun to someone who'd killed without hesitation in a Prague parking garage.
William closed his eyes and let the plan crystallize.
Step one: secure an invitation. The fashion industry had security consultants; Jansen could help him build the right connections.
Step two: upgrade the cover. "William Green, security consultant" needed to become someone with enough social capital to mingle at an IAGO auction.
Step three: technical preparation. He needed to be able to extract data quickly, which meant either acquiring the skills or finding someone who had them.
Step four: extraction. Get in, get the intelligence, get out before 47's operation created a kill zone.
Four steps. Twelve days. And a system that tracked his progress in points of corruption like a fitness app counting calories.
The apartment's water heater clicked on, filling the silence with mechanical humming. Outside, Amsterdam's evening traffic provided a backdrop of normalcy—people going home, living lives, unaware that somewhere in their city a man was planning to rob a spy network during an assassination.
William opened his laptop and started writing lists.
Names. Resources. Contingencies.
The USB drive glowed in the corner of his vision like a promise and a threat.
[QUEST UPDATED: PARIS OPERATION]
[PHASE: Planning]
[TIMELINE: 12 days]
[PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: Calculating...]
[NOTE: Probability will update as preparation progresses. Current estimate: 34%]
Thirty-four percent. Better than the twenty-three he'd started with. Worse than the sixty-seven the full plan required.
"Then I better start working."
The system hummed its agreement in the dark.
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